Senator CARR (6:17 PM) —We just heard from the Acting Leader of the Government in the Senate. He has spoken for three minutes. You would have thought that with all his experience in this parliament he would have had a bit more to say than could be said in three minutes. What a miserable, mealy-mouthed performance that was that came from Senator Alston, the great champion of the lawyers' party in this parliament. What we have heard from him is gratuitous advice to the opposition. We have heard from him gratuitous advice to the Democrats.

Nothing could be more insincere than the proposition he has put before us today, because at core here we have the major problem with the government's legislation, a program which they have trumpeted up and down this country. Up and down this country they have said, `This is the most important legislation this country has ever seen.' We have been told that this is legislation that is immutable. That is the proposition that has been put to the people of this country. And now we are told that there needs to be more time to consider the amendments of the Democrats—amendments which you have already declared that you intend to vote against and have already declared that you have no interest in. You have no interest in considering these issues.

The critical issue here about all of this is that you really need more time to get your deal together. The critical question that has to be attended to is that you have yet to organise the deal to put this package through the parliament. We say, of course, that this package is wrong. We say that a majority of Australians do not accept this package, that a majority of Australians understand just how wrong this package is and they demonstrated that at the last election. But you claim to have a mandate, you claim that this is the most important legislation this country has ever seen and you claim that this legislation is immutable. Yet you come in here with this mealy-mouthed nonsense that you want to provide more time for the Democrats to prepare amendments which you will vote against. What we have seen is a major U-turn by the government on this question.

I am perhaps a bit different from some of my colleagues in my perception of Senator Ian Campbell's role in this. I do understand the problem he faces. I do appreciate the difficulty he faces. Quite frankly, he is dealing with incompetents beside him in Senator Kemp and Senator Alston. He is dealing with fundamental incompetents. They do not bother telling him what is going on, and he is the one who has to come in here and find excuses for the incompetence of this government. We were told by Mr Costello only yesterday that the Senate should get on with the job, that he cannot understand why we need to wait another week, that this vote should be taken straightaway. Yet Senator Campbell is the unfortunate one who has to get up here and explain why this miserable, mealy-mouthed approach is being taken. Quite clearly he is at a loss to do so. I can understand just how weak his performance is, because what else could he do after so much has been made of this legislation by so many in this government with so little to show for it?

This parliament, we are told, has been considering this matter for 14 hours. We are told that there have been huge amounts of time spent in the committees of the parlia ment, a select committee and three standing committees. We have been told that all this needs to be considered in two additional weeks of sitting. Yet we are told here at 5 o'clock tonight that we have to adjourn the consideration of this matter. After the consideration of a number of amendments which we have already put, a number of principal matters that we have already put, we are told that these matters cannot be discussed any more today. This is only after yesterday when we heard from Senator McGauran, who got a big run on the ABC news last night saying that this was a matter that the government was prepared to fight a double dissolution on.

Senator Robert Ray —Who said that?

Senator CARR —Senator McGauran said it. He was only too happy to present this as being of fundamental importance to the government. Yet what do we hear from the government today? We have to adjourn. In a breathtaking act of hypocrisy, what you are trying to do is provide more time to stitch up your arrangements.

What we have demonstrated again is that the government seeks to blame the Democrats, and they are very easy to blame. You are only too happy to blame the Democrats when you get into trouble, and they fall into the trap every time of allowing you to blame them. One can understand why you used to call them the fairies at the bottom of the garden, the fruitcakes and the various other descriptions you have put on them. Unfortunately, I think their performance today does confirm some of those opinions that you have had of them.

We have been told that we have stitched up some deal with the government in regard to the proceedings in the bill. Nothing could be further from the truth. What we saw today from the Democrats was that they were the ones that voted with the government. It was the Democrats that voted with the government in terms of passing the second reading of the bills.

We had 14 principal amendments moved by the opposition—14 of them. What did the government do? They voted against them all—blanket opposition, as you would expect. What did the Democrats do? On issues such as this proposal being an unfair tax that would see more than 50 per cent of benefits going to the top 20 per cent of income earners, and of it being a tax to benefit higher income earners which would far outweigh increases in social security benefits for low income earners—proposals which would see the creation of a situation where people with no children and earnings of $100,000 per year would get five times the benefit proposed for low income earners—what do the Democrats do? They abstain. What great principle; what a show of strength that was; what an extraordinary commitment to social justice was demonstrated by their abstention today!

On the issue of protecting retirees, what did the Democrats do? They abstained. On the question of defending Australian consumers and exposing the real impact of the tax on prices rises, the Democrats abstained. On the issue of defending small businesses, what did the Democrats do? They abstained. So I do not think it is appropriate for them to suggest that they are the persons of high principle and that they are the only ones that have an interest in social justice and equity issues.

What we have heard from Senator Alston, however, means that the government has once again demonstrated its hypocrisy. We heard only yesterday from the Prime Minister—and it has been contradicted by Senator Alston, I might suggest, in his actions today—`I have said all along that we are not going to alter the essential thrust of the plan. What I will happily do is finetune at the margins but I am not going to alter the essentials.' Senator Alston would have us believe that there is going to be some consideration of the measures being presented by the Democrats. I suggest to you that nothing could be further from the truth.

We saw Senator Alston in the Telstra debate, where he suggested that Senator Faulkner had acted in a way which was inappropriate and had indicated that, once you have the numbers, you just use them. Senator Faulkner did not say that. On the contrary, what we have seen in the Telstra discussion in this parliament is that Senator Alston has behaved in that way, quite clearly gagging the debate on Telstra and quite clearly using Senator Colston in the most unprincipled of ways to secure the partial privatisation of Telstra itself.

I say to the Senate that this proposal is not about a proper consideration of the legislative program and it is not about an orderly scheduling of debate; it is about providing the government with more time to stitch up its deal to get this inequitable tax through—which of course will do great harm to this country.

The PRESIDENT —The question is that the motion moved by Senator Ian Campbell be agreed to.